News
Welcome to the News community!
Rules:
1. Be civil
Attack the argument, not the person. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Good faith argumentation only. This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban. Do not respond to rule-breaking content; report it and move on.
2. All posts should contain a source (url) that is as reliable and unbiased as possible and must only contain one link.
Obvious right or left wing sources will be removed at the mods discretion. Supporting links can be added in comments or posted seperately but not to the post body.
3. No bots, spam or self-promotion.
Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.
4. Post titles should be the same as the article used as source.
Posts which titles don’t match the source won’t be removed, but the autoMod will notify you, and if your title misrepresents the original article, the post will be deleted. If the site changed their headline, the bot might still contact you, just ignore it, we won’t delete your post.
5. Only recent news is allowed.
Posts must be news from the most recent 30 days.
6. All posts must be news articles.
No opinion pieces, Listicles, editorials or celebrity gossip is allowed. All posts will be judged on a case-by-case basis.
7. No duplicate posts.
If a source you used was already posted by someone else, the autoMod will leave a message. Please remove your post if the autoMod is correct. If the post that matches your post is very old, we refer you to rule 5.
8. Misinformation is prohibited.
Misinformation / propaganda is strictly prohibited. Any comment or post containing or linking to misinformation will be removed. If you feel that your post has been removed in error, credible sources must be provided.
9. No link shorteners.
The auto mod will contact you if a link shortener is detected, please delete your post if they are right.
10. Don't copy entire article in your post body
For copyright reasons, you are not allowed to copy an entire article into your post body. This is an instance wide rule, that is strictly enforced in this community.
view the rest of the comments
Might be a power thing, but what adult woman wants an inexperienced 16 year old?
It would amaze and disgust you how seasoned some of these teenage boys are.
One who wants a one sided deal that she snd she alone controls. There's never a shortage or men who look for other women, but then these kind of people should adapt to an actual relationship.
I think that part of this narrative gets fucked because there is a fairly large segment of reporters that fantasized about getting with their cute youngish teacher back when they were in school.
This is not to say that this is ok. It isn't. This is SA, CSA, really. And even if the teacher were teaching/seducing 18 year olds on a college campus it would still be a gross misuse of power.
A pedophile.
Like literally, by definition.
10 year age gap there, 26 yo woman vs 16 yo dude.
Flip the sexes around, that's a pedophile, no argument at all.
Other than from people who really, really really feel its necesarry to 'well actually you mean ephebophile'.
Grooming is kinda the whole modus operandi here, they get off on the power dynamic, in every way you can interperet 'get off' and 'power dynamic'.
Considering he is above the age of consent it is obviously NOT pedophilia.
If she had been a neighbor it would be legal. The reason it isn't is because she is a figure of authority. Which technically from a legal perspective makes it rape.
In 14 US states it is actually legal!!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Age_of_consent
Are you really saying 14 states have legalized pedophilia?
Do you even remember how it is to be 16?
My sister has been happily married to her husband who is 15 years older than her for 30+ years, are you saying my brother in law is a pedophile because of the age difference?
You are judgemental and pushing your norms on other people. And it's disgusting you have so many upvotes!
I had decided to resign from this debate, but some of the comments here, like yours are just so far beyond what lawmakers have decided in by far the most countries it's insane. Are you also considering LGBT immoral?
It's wrong yes, but the term pedo should be reserved for when it's justified, which it isn't here.
I’m not the one saying pedophilia here but relationships like this entirely depend on what age they got together I feel.
Yes. I'm unsure how a State's law would suddenly change human biology and make a 14 year old not a child.
WTF? And where is 14 state law? That's a slippery slope argument, and is logically invalid.
I'm replying to a comment claiming several states have the age of consent set at 14. Your reply makes zero sense.
Maybe read again, 14 states have 16 year as the age of consent.
Where does it say 14 year? The part you quote CLEARLY says STATES!!
By human biology, a 14 year old is sexually mature and capable of becoming a parent. The terms “child, teen, adolescent, adult” are all social constructs. We as a society have drawn arbitrary lines and even changed them over time.
That's incorrect in several different levels.
Partially.
The lines we draw and how we interact the world are curiously incapable of changing biological processes.
Could you elaborate? Throughout history people have successfully become parents at that age or even younger. Your flat denial is an extraordinary claim and you haven’t given any evidence to support it.
Sure, but only if you're actually interested in an honest discussion about the topic. If the goal is discussing US states or internal US politics and similar content, I'm out.
To begin with, sexual maturity is not synced across all populations nor individuals within a population. You'll certainly be aware of girls starting menstruation at nine years old, yet their cousins at sixteen. There has been a trend towards early puberty, but our species has existed for long before that.
It's also important to note that the start of menstruation and puberty does not mean the start of viable reproductive health. Sure, you can find many examples of girls becoming pregnant and having a child at 14... But if you look at mortality rates for these pregnancies, they're higher than the expected average for adult pregnancies.
Even with all of that taken into account, why exactly are you constructing "capable of having a child" as the definition of "no longer a child"? Our development is extremely slow, it's a key aspect of our species. We take a long time to mature in the womb, we take an absurdly long time to mature as early infants, and we take even more time to become fully grown adults. The fact that young girls might have the necessary apparatus to conceive a child does not imply in any way that they aren't children themselves - there have been reports of nine year olds having a viable pregnancy, can you argue they are not children?
Good old "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence" is a fantastic quote, but only when it's applied correctly. No extraordinary claim has been made here.
Mortality risk in pregnancy never goes to zero. Many other species (such as salmon, octopi, many insects, arachnids) have a mortality rate close to 100% for either one or both parents after reproduction. Ultimately it is a tradeoff over resources between parents and offspring. Many other mammals have smaller offspring than humans though they lack humans’ large brain volume relative to maternal pelvis size. Scientists have debated about the reasons for women’s small pelvis size relative to the baby’s skull size and the rough consensus seems to be a tradeoff between intelligence and walking/running ability as well as agility.
Your definition of sexual maturity would seem to imply that the optimal time to have children is when a woman’s maternal mortality risk is minimized but that assumes all other risks remain constant over time. They do not, especially not in the past when famine was a much greater risk and all-cause mortality was much higher (including infant and young child mortality). This means the optimal time to have children would be much earlier given that famine or disease or other misfortune could strike the family at any time and that children matured into productivity quite rapidly (children didn’t always go to school for 12 years). It should also be noted that famine and the associated loss of body fat can halt the menstrual cycle in women of any age.
Lastly, I need to point out that many traditional and indigenous communities throughout the world have or previously had initiation rites to welcome children into adulthood and full standing within the tribe at or around the age of puberty. Contemporary society with its emphasis on more and more schooling has been the primary driver of the push to longer and longer periods of adolescence. The mental health and physical development effects of such extended adolescence are only beginning to be understood.
You are still not addressing the difference between "a portion of individuals will be capable of having a viable pregnancy at this age" with "adulthood".
So as mentioned earlier, some nine year olds have survived pregnancy, especially in the last few decades. The mortality rate is absurd, and pretty much all neurological hallmarks of adulthood are nowhere near complete... but they do fit your definition perfectly. They can conceive healthy offspring.
Would you call them adults? Would you lower the age of consent to 9? Assuming in good faith your answer will be "no" then you must, by definition, introduce other conditional aspects to "adulthood" that go beyond the ability to sustain pregnancy, which was my point.
My original comment never made that claim:
The fact that we may define adulthood at 16 or 18 or 21 (depending on the country or the context) but that indigenous cultures defined adulthood (subject to completion of the rite of passage) at 12 or 13 is strong evidence of the social constructedness of these terms. That’s what I wanted to illustrate along with the biology examples showing that maternal mortality is a tradeoff and not an indicator of sexual maturity.
Yes, asterisk.
Asterisk:
Unless those laws specifically have something like... you as a 16 yo can consent to sex with someone 16, 17, 18, some cutoff age after which it goes back to not being ok, then yes.
(I'm fairly confident a good number of those state laws do include some kind of consideration of that)
The age differential matters.
Once it gets too much, its no longer two post-puberty kids exploring their sexuality, the difference in maturity and social status becomes manipulative and exploitative.
Yes.
I was interested in girls my age, +/- one year.
Lost my virginity to a 17 yo girl, one grade above me, not my teacher, 10 years older.
When I was 26? When I am now 36?
Uh yeah, still interested in women roughly my age, though the age range has widened a bit as I get older... doesn't get anywhere near 16 though, more like +/- 5 at 36, +/- 3 at 26.
Assuming your sister, at age 16, married a 31 year old... uh yes absolutely that's disgusting.
Pushing my norms, no.
I'm expressing my opinion and stances, not mandating everyone else follow them.
I find your sister and her husband's relationship to have a disgusting origin, but I'm not going to advocate your brother in law be jailed.
That would be pushing my norms.
Judgemental? Oh sure, absolutely, guilty as charged.
Well now who's judgemental?
Its the internet. People are allowed to have strong opinions.
I don't agree with yours, you don't agree with mine.
This is... arguably the entire point of an online discussion system?
Absolutely not, no, frankly I have no clue how you could even think that would be a reasonable other position to expect me to hold...
I am queer lol, I've dated a trans woman, I've dated an ambi-gender person, bi women... I've gotten handsy and made out with bi and gay guys a few times... I seem to mostly go for a feminine presenting person, or a person with feminine aspects... but I'm considerably more flexible with that than your stereotypical straight man.
LGBT relationships are an entirely different thing than massive age gap relationships, I again have no clue how that seems like a reasonable assumption to jump to.
It woukd be weird and creepy if a 26 yo woman had a romantic or sexual relationship with a 16 yo girl, if a 26 yo man had a relationship with a 16 yo boy.
OK that's really enough said.
As are most at that age, except it would have to be +, because if you go minus 1 at 16, it's illegal! But you do not present any real argument only your opinion.
But really that wasn't what I meant at all, what I was referring to was the ability to decide for yourself at the age of 16. Which most countries find you can.
You just cherry picked what I said so that you could continue mischaracterize what I am saying, by continuing to say I am or support thing I am not and do not, characterize a personal anecdote and direct answer to a direct question as a reasoning.
Like I explicitly gave you my reasoning and you just ignore it and say I have none.
Its especially insane that you say I was knee jerk reacting.
I took almost an hour to write that out, with intention.
It is also insane to say that my worldview is based on religious indoctrination.
To the contrary, it is largely based on a rejection of religious indoctrination.
Formalization of child marriage is one of the most horrible things that religions, or variants of them, of all kinds, all over the world, do.
But by the same logic, it can or could also be very exploitative of boys... its just that such societies that go for a child bride norm are almost always patriarchal, though i am sure many men also do not appreciate being forced into marriages.
It perpetuates a concept of women as property, not people, and normalizes and reinforces their subjugation and inherently inferior, 2nd class nature.
I struggle to comprehend the mental pretzels you must be brain bending in order to earnestly and genuinely believe all of the things you are saying, you are terrible at argumentative rhetoric and it is obvious you are being disingenuous.
You are so badly mischaracterizing what I said that I actually have to consider whether or not English is your first language, or perhaps your reading skills aren't far beyond middle school.
Finally... yes, a larger age gap is generally much more acceptable... as the age of both partners increases.
You seem to not grasp the concept that a 25 yo and a 30 yo is pretty normal, a 40 yo and a 30 yo is... a bit weird but could work... a 35 yo and a 45 yo less weird, as they are both older..
...but a 17 yo and a 27 yo is not ok.
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6785975/
"Among participants aged 14 to 24 years, the percentage having had sex increased with age, from 12.5% among females and 13.1% among males at age 14 years to more than 75% at age 19 years for both sexes."
I'm not sure how that link is relevant to the question?
He assumed the kid was inexperienced but the average age of sexual initiation in US is 17. Lot's of boys are experienced at 16.
Just having selfish sex during your teenage years I wouldn't call experienced. You can say...sure I've had sex. Probably lasted 3-4 mins, no foreplay, back of the car. Sneaking around when your parents are sleeping. Yada yada.
So while sure. You can read a stat that says.. oh they do have sex....but will this satisfy the avg woman? Majority of grown men in the middle 20s can't satisfy women or ignore foreplay. Key areas it takes for a great sexual experience.
This is power and control. Not the desire for good sex. It's even more embarrassing that she bragged about it to her friend. What adult woman would be impressed about you taking a 16 year old home?
Creepy af.
Exactly. She's 26 so asking "what adult woman wants an inexperienced 16 year old" is like asking "why isn't she only dating older guys". This kid might have similar experience to guys closer to her age. That being said it obviously wasn't about quality of sex.
Thank you, this was my thought as well. I'm a woman, and it took until my mid-20s (and having an experience with another woman) for me to truly learn what sex is all about. Now in my 30s, I'd say most people I date are "experienced" at sex.
A teenager messing around with another teenager has a tiny bit of "experience," but to think that's the same as the sexual experience as adult has is naive. Teenagers still think porn is accurate, whereas sexually experienced adults know what to actually do.
Ummmmm no…. Having had sex does not make one “experienced”
There are still whole generations of both men and women who do not know what a clitoris is…..
Enthusiasm can often beat experience.
still rape from a pedo, that things really mess with people's brain.
hope he gets the help he needs
Insecurity. "Yep I've still got it!"
I was the 16 year old once, it's a lot of things, but mostly I think it was the power trip for her.
Easier to train.
ask that to any pedo